3 Students Awarded Merit Scholarships
Three high school seniors from Santa Paula, Ojai and Ventura have been awarded college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships. They will each receive thousands of dollars toward tuition over the next four years.
Kathleen Nava, a 16-year-old who graduates from Santa Paula High School on June 12, plans to attend Johns Hopkins University, where she will study biomedical engineering / medicine, said her mother, Maeri Nava. Kathleen, winner of the 1997 Ventura County Science Fair with a project on genetics, was competing Tuesday at the California State Science Fair.
Cameron R. Hughes, soon to graduate from Nordhoff High School in Ojai, has won a merit scholarship to UC Santa Barbara starting this fall. His area of study will be physics.
Ventura High School’s David Schneider has won a merit scholarship to USC. His career field will be music composition and performance.
The 1998 competition for merit scholarships began with more than 1 million juniors in 20,000 high schools taking the exam. Fewer than 1% of those are named semifinalists.
The 15,000 students then compete as finalists. From that group, 7,400 high school seniors were awarded scholarships.
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